


Happiest Season

by Pixiepeekboo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Loki AU, Loki Fanfic - Freeform, Loki fluff, Quest, loki x tesseract - Freeform, snake son, soft snake boy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:54:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29549613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixiepeekboo/pseuds/Pixiepeekboo
Summary: Some more Loki x Humanoid!Tesseract interactions because it is lowkey (haha, see what I did there? hahaha....ok, I'm done now) one of the best MCU ships
Relationships: Loki X tesseract
Comments: 8
Kudos: 6
Collections: Loki/Infinity Stones





	Happiest Season

**Author's Note:**

> Snake sons are my obsession, and Loki is one of my snakey-est sons of all and I just adore him

"What are you doing?" Tess poked her head through the ceiling. Although technically she didn't have hair, the glowing white strands at the top of her head acted like hair, and dangled downward, crackling with electricity.

Loki glanced at her before tossing his hair back from his face and focusing on the worktable in front of him again. "Working. What are you doing?" he asked.

Tess sank through the ceiling. She drifted to the floor to stand beside him. Jagged streaks of lightning zigzagged away from her body. One bolt caught Loki on the elbow. Fortunately, he had spent his entire life surrounded by lightning go lucky Thor and so it was no more painful to him than static. He eyed her again.

"Is something wrong? You seem - awake, today," he said, for lack of a better word.

Tess shrugged. The blue light surrounding her frame flared brighter for a brief moment. "I sensed tension. Care to explain?" she waggled her eyebrows at him before sweeping her arm, gesturing at the worktable covered from end to end in knives.

Loki grinned. "Well," he said. "I was thinking of a little something. Care to make a trip to Midgard with me?"

Tess glitched from his side to stand on the tabletop. She smiled down at him, almost as mischievous as he was. "What sort of trip to earth entails this variety of knives?"

He grabbed two from the table. They were a scarlet so dark they almost looked black, with rubies embedded down the center of the blade, to the hilt. At the hilt of each knife was a circular ring, and he hooked his fingers around them. The curved blades looked too beautiful to be dangerous, particularly in his long, slender fingers. For a moment, the glamor he held over himself faded, and Tess tracked every arched, blue ridge traced across his skin, to the red of his eyes.

"I'm to acquire a blade that's highly unusual and a bit...unconventional."

"Blade for a blade." Tess hopped to the ground. "Would I be more useful to you-"

"No," Loki said hastily. "I wouldn't imagine ever asking that of you. You're more useful to me like this. Companionship. Come along. Let's get you changed to something Midgardian," he said, sheathing the double knives into the tops of his boots before he extended a hand to Tess. There was a heartbeat between them before he seemed to remember that without a certain spell, Tesseract was untouchable, uncorporeal. Forbidden and off limits to this realm of existence, at least.

For that single instant, Tesseract felt impossibly sad that she could not always be that way. But it would take magic, and energy, and whatever Loki was about to do, he could not afford to spend that magic on her. Or, he would, but Tess would never ask that of him. Not when apparently what he wanted to retrieve was so dangerous. So, she turned instead to the table and selected a blade of her own. It was his signature dagger: blue bladed, with a black hilt. Wicked and sharp as sin, it glinted in the dim torchlight as Tesseract turned back to him.

Loki's eyes smoldered. He swallowed and gestured for her to lead the way. Tesseract snickered. "Like that, do you?" she asked over her shoulder.

***

The West Wing of the castle belonged to Loki, and it almost passed for a library, if not for all the unusual objects inside it. Like a curator's curiosity shoppe.

Loki ducked past all the piles of books to the closet and despite her reluctance, Tess entered it after him. She almost wished she had waited on the other side of the door, though: Loki was already stripping out of his outer clothes, down to his fighting leathers and tank. It showed off his rounded shoulders, and the glorious sinews of muscle he almost always concealed behind layers of clothing. Asgard, in general, dressed in layer upon layer.

With his Frost Giant heritage, Tesseract would have thought Loki incapable of feeling cold.

She realized she was staring. "Should I - should I leave?" she asked, the outlines of her body shimmering. Although she would not have sight while in cube form, it might save her from the embarrassment. Except, now she would know exactly what the arms that were attached to those hands looked like. She made a craven, animal sound deep in her throat.

Loki blinked at her. "What? No. It's fine. You've seen worse, haven't you?" He glanced down at his arms.

Tesseract's brow rumpled, confused, before she realized what he meant. The scars. Knife wounds and bite marks. His occupation with power and saving people through any means he saw fit, and occasionally destroying himself in the process.

Tesseract could never have put the pain into words - it carved jagged and deep, through every fiber and atom of what she was, to the very depths of her soul, if she had one. One day, she hoped Loki would no longer be locked in that dark place. But freed. Resurrected and King. It was what he deserved, more than anything else. This was one thing they shared, the one common denominator. Thanos.

She glared. "It is not fine. Why are you changing, anyway?"

"Midgard," he said. "They are very particular about style and I don't desire to be called a witch immediately upon our arrival."

Tesseract grinned at once, her mood cleansed by the idea. "Scratch that. I think I'd enjoy it."

"Thor did," Loki muttered.

Tesseract had not had many dealing with Loki's brother. He was constantly coming and going, traveling the world over for his girlfriend, Jane, and defending the galaxy against obvious evils. Little did he know the machinations of his brother's scheming mind.

"I bet he did," she said, "Probably it was splendid. I wish I could have been there." She looked over at him, pulling a garment from the shelf and tossing it at her. It was one of his suits, in gold. Tess wanted to be embarrassed by the delighted, electric glow that whooshed around her. But she was taken by the suit.

"Really?" she said, phasing herself into it. It was made of a material almost too comfortable for clothes - as if she was snuggled against Loki himself. She released a breath, startled, and locked eyes with him. "It's yours," she said, almost accusatory. 

He shrugged.

"You made it." She could not drop it. Perhaps she should have, but he had made it, and even as she wore it, the garment shifted to complement her frame.

"And now," he said, "it's yours. Let's go."

She clung to the borrowed dagger, feeling as though ti was the only thing anchoring her here, next to him. He was already striding forward, snapping his fingers at the mirror in the corner. The glass rippled before it plunged to seething darkness. Loki gestured at Tess.

"Care to go first?" he asked, his grin slightly impish.

So that was the issue. He did not see her the same way. She was a sibling to him, someone to have adventures with. A slimy, squirming sensation filled her when it struck her that her feelings did not reflect his. The pain was lacerating, excruciating. He cocked his head, eyebrows lifting.

"What's wrong?"

Tesseract shook her head. "Nothing," she said, and strode through the mirror's doorway, carefully stepping down on the other side. It was Loki's portal pathways, a web of places to travel, though still a relative work in progress, and the last thing she wanted was to get separated from him somewhere in these depths. Especially considering that technically, they were both supposed to be dead, though it would be less shocking for Loki to reappear than Tess.

She was a wanted astral creature in every universe, every timeline, every reality. Wanted in every way except the way she wanted most. 

Loki stepped inside after her and something about the dark, and the smoky, near molten sound of his voice inside it made the space feel intimate.

Although she could not feel it, he trailed his fingers down the impression of her arm to her hand, in a semblance of comfort. Perhaps she was not concealing her emotions well enough. She wondered how much he could read on her face.

"Through here, darling," he said, with a gentle prompt of his fingers. She wished desperately to be able to feel him without a spell.

He led her to the doorway leading to Midgard. A simplish, wishboard place. It hungered, always; just looking at it made Tesseract restless. Energy beld out of her, but Loki, with a sideglance at her face, absorbed it before she could interfere with the portal's magic.

"Steady, love. Now we exit."

She nodded and although she did not feel it, tried to keep her hand in his while they walked through.

It was like falling sideways, barreling through gravity itself to the edge of the world. Loki led Tesseract through in a place dense with humidity and soft with green mist.

"Where in Midgard are we?" she asked.

Loki brushed down his suit - she did not quite understand the function of the battle wear, something looped and buckled and intricate. It looked impossible to take off.

He lifted a gas mask to his face. "The Solitarys," he said. "Highly toxic, and extremely hard to get into." 

"Is the dagger here?" she whispered at his mask. It was appallingly beautiful on him, something of a warped angel, because she knew exactly how he looked beneath it. 

Loki unsheathed two large blades from his back and they looked even more dangerous now than before, something extreme about him being so heavily armored when he was practically indestructible.

What was out here that scared him so badly?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
